Henry doted on his only son, immensely proud of siring such a healthy and athletic boy, proof that his lack of legitimate male heirs was not his doing. We do not know what Fitzroy felt for his father, but Mantel’s version has no love for him, and becomes fixated on the crown. Cromwell suspects this is Fitzroy’s father-in-law, the Duke of Norfolk’s doing, or that of his brother-in-law, Henry Howard. Certainly the marriage between Fitzroy and Mary Howard in 1533 was most advantageous for the Howards, but would give Norfolk a dangerous amount of power should Fitzroy become king.
Despite Fitzroy’s position, and his belief that he was the logical choice, Chapuys believed he would not be considered, as by mid-1536 the young man was very ill, likely from consumption or lung disease. Mantel’s Cromwell also firmly tries to disabuse Fitzroy of the notion that he might be king, or that he, Cromwell, has the power to persuade Henry. Mantel’s Cromwell makes the salient point that while Fitzroy may be a boy, he is still the son of a mistress – Mary and Elizabeth are at least daughters of queens.
M
ARGARET
D
OUGLAS
Margaret Douglas was the daughter of Henry’s sister Margaret and her second husband, Archibald Douglas. They had married during her regency for her two-year-old heir, James V. The marriage caused a civil war in Scotland as warring factions tried to take the crown. Margaret was forced to flee across the border with her daughter to England, with young Margaret being sent to stay in Cardinal Wolsey’s household. Following the Cardinal’s death, Margaret was first transferred to the household of her cousin Princess Mary, where the two formed a close connection, before finally joining Anne Boleyn’s retinue. Diarmaid MacCulloch describes Margaret as a ‘loose cannon in the realm’ and indeed, while serving Anne, Margaret formed a secret attachment to Thomas Howard, the younger half-brother of the Duke of Norfolk.
In the series, the affair does not reach Cromwell’s ears until after Anne’s execution and he is frustrated that he has been so distracted by the chaos that he missed a dangerous relationship between a Howard and a potential heir to the throne. Historically, the affair was a small though troubling event in Henry’s reign, but its literary impact was far more significant.
Mantel’s Cromwell comes into the possession of a volume that contains almost 200 anonymous poems. This manuscript is one of the most important collections of Tudor courtly verse, written predominantly by the young women who served Anne Boleyn – Margaret Douglas, Mary Fitzroy, and Mary (or Margaret) Shelton, with some additions by Thomas and Henry Howard and Thomas Wyatt. The folio, known as The Devonshire Manuscript, housed in the British Library, provides a revealing insight into how men and women expressed themselves while negotiating courtly love, power, faith and politics; it is one of the most valuable surviving records of early Tudor poetry and the literary lives of Tudor women. But to Mantel’s Cromwell and Wriothesley, it provides evidence of an illicit affair that could have had serious dynastic ramifications.
Mantel’s Cromwell and Wriothesley interview Margaret Douglas, who is supported by her closest friend Mary Fitzroy. They quickly discover that the affair had gone well beyond courtly love, with Margaret insisting that they have been betrothed before witnesses. Mantel’s Cromwell quietly urges Margaret to deny the betrothal but she names other women who were witnesses. Both Margaret Douglas and Thomas Howard were sent to the Tower, where Howard was also interrogated.
Cromwell casts his net to bring in the young women who once served Anne Boleyn and who knew about Margaret Douglas and Thomas Howard, including Mary Shelton, Anne’s cousin, and Jane Rochford, George Boleyn’s widow (see chapter 4). An enraged Henry has Cromwell draw up the Bill of Attainder which would allow the crown to convict Howard without a trial, on the grounds that the relationship is a threat to the peace and unity of the realm and so constituted high treason. The bill also forbade any marriage to a female member of the royal family without the king’s assent. As Cromwell says: ‘The new clauses won’t necessarily stop royal persons doing stupid things. But they will create a formal process for dealing with them, when they do.’ On 18 July 1536, Howard was attainted and awaited a traitor’s death, though no execution was planned. Henry, still furious at his niece, kept her in the Tower, but allowed her to move to Syon Abbey when she fell ill, where she remained under house arrest.
Five days after the young Thomas Howard was attainted, Henry Fitzroy died at St James’s Palace. There was no state funeral; instead it was left to the Duke of Norfolk to make the arrangements for his son-in-law. Norfolk planned to have him interred at Thetford Priory, the ancestral resting place of the Howard family. It should have been fairly simple to transport the body from London to Norfolk in a dignified manner but somehow the decaying body ended up in a straw-filled wagon, followed by only two mourners. Henry was understandably incandescent with rage at such negligence. Norfolk wrote to Cromwell, mortified that his plans for the internment should have gone so awry. At the time of the letter, Norfolk was hosting Cromwell’s son Gregory, as part of a plan to immerse Gregory in high society. It marked the end of an era that proud Norfolk would be
